I, for one, am grateful that contemporary formalism isn't shy about light verse. But several commenters here and elsewhere have raised the canard about there being nothing else to it. They need to read more. Here are few short ones, since it's already late for me.
From Thom Gunn, The Man with Night Sweats
The Reassurance
About ten days or so
After we saw you dead
You came back in a dream.
I'm all right now you said.
And it was you, although
You were fleshed out again:
You hugged us all round then,
And gave your welcoming beam.
How like you to be kind,
Seeking to reassure.
And, yes, how like my mind
To make itself secure.
From Dick Davis, Devices and Desires:
Ja'afar
The exiles' newspaper; plots, squabble; I
See nothing here for an outsider's eye
Until '… and the late Ja'afar Modaress."
How did you come by death? But I can guess.
I heard your thin, harsh voice excoriate
The lies of literature and of the state.
Then you laughed, shrugged; and what could laughter do?
You were not thirty when they murdered you.
I take your one book down; its flimsy cover
Reads Short Stories: The Children's Games are Over.
From Jenny Factor, Unraveling at the Name:
Swing Time
Ten crazy minutes when it almost worked:
from bedtime crackers Sam and I segued
to playing, singing terse Cole Porter songs
(Cole smiling cross-legged on the frontispiece,
queer and dapper; married, as I am),
and Ben, who can't bear eighth notes badly swung—
an amateur musician, nearly pro—
laid off his book and sat down at the keys.
I swept and scooped our son across the floor
While gender-bending lyrics, sotto voiced.
Then Ben stopped playing, taught me how to lead
left foot, right foot, til our feet agreed,
"Night and Day," "I Happen To Like New York."
Two from me, because it's my blog and I don't have to type them:
The Fall
When we'd pile in my great-aunt's Chevrolet
And drive to see the trees turned red and gold,
Grandma would scowl. "Reminds me of death," she'd say.
"It means that everything is getting old."
"Now, Helen, 'after winter comes the spring.'"
But she'd have none of that. "It came and went
For you and me, Sister." And then she'd sing
"Go, tell Aunt Rhody, " just for devilment.
I have her picture, 19, sure to break
The heart of every man she ever met—
Another from her fifties, in a fake
Nun's habit sucking on a cigarette,
And both are faithful. Grandma, you were right.
There's nothing grows in Fall except the night.
A Little Grace
Episcopalian kids at camp, we sought
And found God's revelation manifest
In brand-new pubic hair, and rounding breast,
And deep-tongued kiss, and fear of being caught—
For God was love, they taught, but also taught
That His was jealous love, so obsessed
With faithfulness that we could not be blessed
While soul, to us, seemed body's afterthought.
We lay together by the river side
Sorting out which truth would lead astray,
And almost missed the snake curled in the roots
Below the bank as if to be our guide,
Till unconcerned with us it slipped away;
We turned to taste each other's offered fruits.
From Rhina Espaillat, Where Horizons Go:
Reservation
As if he has decided on a nap
but feels too pressed for time to find his bed
or even shift the napkin from his lap,
the man across the table drops his head
mid-anecdote, just managing to clear
a basket of warm rolls and butter stacked
like little golden dice beside his ear.
The lady seems embarrassed to attract
Such swift attention from the formal stranger
who leaves his dinner, bends as if to wake
the sleeper, seeks a pulse. Others arrange her
coat about her, gather round to take
the plates, the quiet form, her name, her hand.
Now slowly she begins to understand.
From R. S. Gwynn, No Word of Farewell:
At Rose's Range
Old Gladys, in lime polyester slacks,
Might rate a laugh until she puts her weight
Squarely behind the snubnosed .38,
Draws down and pulls. The bulldog muzzle cracks
And barks six times, and six black daisies flower
Dead in teh heart of Saddam's silhouette.
She turns aside, empties, reloads, gets set
And fires again. This goes on for an hour.
Later, we pass the time at the front door
Where she sits smoking, waiting for the friend
Who drives her places after dark: You know,
Earl's free next month. He says he wants some more
Of what she's got, and she's my daughter so
I reckon there's just one way this can end.
From Rafael Campos, Diva:
The Mental Status Exam
What is the color of the mind? Beneath
The cranium it's pinkish grey, with flecks
Of white mixed in. What is the mind's motif?
Depends on what you mean: its either sex
Or it's a box, release or pessimism.
Remember these three things: ball, sorrow, red.
Count backwards, from one-hundred down by sevens.
What is the color of the mind? It's said
That love can conquer all—interpret. please.
And who's the President? What year is it?
The mind is timeless, dizzy, unscrupulous;
The mind is sometimes only dimly lit.
Just two more silly questions: Can you sing
For us? Do you remember those three things?
And since it's bedtime, one last from Charles Martin, What the Darkness Proposes:
Modernism: The Short Course
1/
In the beginning, it was a thin wedge that divided
Us all along the fault line of approval,
So that we either gave our assent and applauded,
Or else wrote letters demanding its removal.
2/
The young defended it in practice and in theory
(In theory the more important of the two)
Until they themselves were ancient celebrities, weary
Of having always to look back at the new.
3/
It had but one aim: to baffle all expectations
And do whatever it intended to:
When you agreed with it, it snorted with impatience,
And when you despised it, it agreed with you.
4/
And we, in its wake, cling to whatever keeps us afloat,
Diminished by our having missed it, though
Man Ray's a consolation: "They say that I missed the boat,
But all of the boats I missed sank years ago."
9:20:20 PM 
|
